—after Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans

It happens every so often that a man has it in him, that he is a collector, that he collects somethings, that he does it and often and cruelly, that he does it many times more cruelly, this often cruel thing, when he is a young thing, when he is old, and when he is very old, that he collects things, that he collects things and people who are mere things to him, mere somethings that he pins like butterflies, like flies, like beetles, all the while keeping them alive, pinning them, and pinning and pinning them. It is exciting to him, the pinning the alive, the arranging of their lives, the labeling of thighs, legs, cries, of this man, of that woman with red hair and sea green eyes, and this long-legged boy and that one with that something he likes, that something he excites, and it is all in the arranging, the collecting of cries, the thighs, the something, the taking and the crying and the promising he likes, the promising he will not, no, he will not, not again, and he will, he will not and he will, do it again, and he can not not do it again, the collecting and the doing and the again. Again.

Nin Andrews

is the author of six chapbooks and six full-length poetry collections. Her most recent books include Miss August (CavanKerry Press, May 2017) and Why God Is a Woman (BOA Editions, 2015). Her poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies including Ploughshares, Agni, The Paris Review, and four editions of Best American Poetry. She has won two Ohio individual artist grants, the Pearl Chapbook Contest, the Kent State University chapbook contest, and the Gerald Cable Poetry Award. She is also editor of a book of translations of the Belgian poet Henri Michaux, Someone Wants to Steal My Name.

Author’s website: http://www.ninandrews.com